Books, movies, politics, and whatever I want

Archive for June, 2009

D-Day Memorial Speech

Saturday, June 6th, 2009

In honor of D-Day, which occurred on this day in 1944, here is a speech given by President Ronald Reagan at Normandy.

HT to Ace for the video.

Update: The official US Army D-Day page.

Nerd Eye Candy

Saturday, June 6th, 2009

A Panorama of the new Enterprise bridge.

Warning! It’s new movie Enterprise bridge, so purists beware.
Don’t get too worked up over it kids. Even James Cawley has has said he likes it. It’s not what he would do, but ya, it’s cool.

Update: Brently Irving Sienna was right, it looks like an Apple computer threw up to create the bridge set. 🙂

Friday B-Movie Pick: The Wedding Date

Friday, June 5th, 2009

The Wedding Date

From supernatural action, I dive deep into the pits of RomCom. Yup, having been married for a while, I’ve seen more than my fair share of Romantic Comedies. I’m counting this one as a B-Movie, it was shot in the UK to keep the budget down. Despite that, it has a pretty good cast of Americans, including Amy Adams while she wasn’t so famous. Other yanks in the cast include Dermot Mulroney, Debra Messing and Holland Taylor. For you Disney Pirates fans, you’ll recognize Jack Davenport as well. It is a fun little film with a good cast, some great comedy. It as has one of my favorite lines in a RomCom. Holland Taylor, playing the mother asks Debra Messing’s character what is wrong. Messing delivers the come back with style, “Nothing a bottle of Jack and straight razor wouldn’t fix.”

The Friday B-Movie Archive.

Government Transparency, Obama Style!

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

Just how the porkulus money is being spent is something the Obama administration can’t tell us.

Posting “highly confidential safeguards sensitive” documents listing all the civilian nuclear sites and their activities in the United States on the Internet is apparently no problem.

I wish I was making this shit up. The official story is that this was an “accident“.

It would be comforting to think this was just another example of the incompetence that has been the norm for the Obama administration. However, given the mindset of the Obama political appointees who blocked the Justice Department staff lawyers from bringing charges of voter intimidation against the NBPP and by overruling the orders of two federal courts, stopped the State of Georgia from removing non-US citizens form their voter registration rolls, I can see one of those statist political appointee deciding that this is information that should be made available to the public. The actual threat to safety of American Citizens clearly isn’t part of their criteria.

Justice Clarence Thomas – One cool guy

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009

From NBC-Washington, by way of Hot Air, is this story about a Supreme Court Justice who was flying coach and connected to two young football players, who asked that he be invited to give the keynote speech at their high school graduation.

View more news videos at: http://www.nbcwashington.com/video.

This Supreme Court Justice was flying coach. Think about that. Does any member of your congressional delegation fly coach? My two Senators certainly don’t. They fly private jets when they aren’t flying in Air Force jets designated for “VIP” use.

A Short Political Quiz

Monday, June 1st, 2009

According to Pew, about half the people who have taken this short quiz on current political news have only gotten more than half the questions right. I’m a political nerd, I got 12 out of 12 correct, without looking anything up.

Here are some more breakdowns, Men average just over 50%, women 35%

People under 30 scored a very poor 28%.

Yes, I know, the profile of those who scored the worst is the closest to the average profile for an Obama voter.

Monday Book Pick – The Peshawar Lancers

Monday, June 1st, 2009

The Peshawar Lancers by S.M. Stirling

A fine example of the alternate history sub-genre of Science Fiction. The change in history occurred in 1878, when a series of asteroid strikes caused a “nuclear winter” effect. As a new Ice Age quickly over ran Europe, the British Empire relocated their seat of power to Imperial India. It’s a “rousing good adventure”, complete with Airships and large, steam powered mechanical Difference Engine type computing devices.

The Monday Book Pick Archive